President Barack Obama said Wednesday he wants to reward companies that invest in America and eliminate tax breaks for companies that don’t, and he’s planning new tax proposals to do it.

A day after his Republican foes competed in the New Hampshire primary, Obama sought to grab back the spotlight and underscore his focus on the economy by convening a White House forum on how to increase employment and bring back jobs that have fled overseas.

Speaking alongside a group of business executives in the East Room, Obama said that rising American productivity and increasingly competitive costs add up to “a unique moment, an inflection point” for businesses to invest in the U.S. and bring jobs back home. And he argued there’s a moral case for it, too, and that business leaders have a responsibility to their country.

Most states give their governors broad latitude in granting pardons. Some don’t trust them with that authority at all. And the rest allow a governor to grant pardons only with the recommendation of other state officials.

Mississippi’s raging controversy over last-minute pardons by outgoing governor Haley Barbour has generated calls for limiting the ability to grant pardons in that state. A survey of the clemency power reveals that states vary widely in the degree of authority placed in the hands of the nation’s chief executives.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — President Obama is meeting with executives from 14 companies Wednesday to encourage them to bring jobs back to the United States.

The so-called “Insourcing American Jobs” forum at the White House includes leaders from Ford (F, Fortune 500), DuPont (DD, Fortune 500), Intel (INTC, Fortune 500), Otis Elevators and Rolls Royce, among others.

RICHMOND, Va. — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry have failed to qualify for Virginia’s March 6 Republican primary.

The Republican Party of Virginia announced late Friday and early Saturday that Gingrich and Perry fell short of the 10,000 signatures of registered voters required for a candidate’s name to be on the ballot.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul met the threshold and will be on the ballot.

Washington (CNN) — President Barack Obama is expected to make a statement Thursday on the partisan standoff over how best to extend the expiring payroll tax cut, according to the White House.

Obama will be joined by “Americans who would see their taxes go up if the House Republicans fail to act,” the White House said. Some of those people have participated in Obama’s social media campaign highlighting what a $40 loss to a paycheck can mean to the average American.

Wednesday, the president called House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to discuss the impasse, the White House said.

Des Moines, Iowa (CNN) — Newt Gingrich’s position at the top of the Republican presidential field made him the target of his rivals in the 12th major GOP debate Saturday in Iowa, a little more than three weeks before the state’s caucuses launch the 2012 primaries. Here are five things we learned from the debate:

Attacking in a “relentlessly positive” way

For all his insistence on running a “relentlessly positive” campaign, Newt Gingrich did not back down when the other candidates went after him.

The lifelong historian would argue he isn’t going negative but is simply contrasting his record against others’.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Come January, will 160 million American workers owe a) more than; b) less than; c) the same as they’ve been paying in payroll taxes this year?

The answer will be revealed when lawmakers decide in the next few weeks if they will let a one-year payroll tax cut expire on Dec. 31.

Thanks to the tax cut, employees only had to pay 4.2% of their first $106,800 in wages into Social Security this year, instead of the normal 6.2%.

The impact on your wallet: If the payroll tax cut expires, workers in 2012 will pay the extra 2 percentage points of their income up to the wage cap, which next year will be $110,100.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The New Hampshire Union Leader endorsed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in Sunday editions, signaling that rival Mitt Romney isn’t the universal favorite and that the state’s largest newspaper could reset the contest there with six weeks to go before voters cast their ballots.

“We are in critical need of the innovative, forward-looking strategy and positive leadership that Gingrich has shown he is capable of providing,” the newspaper wrote in an editorial that was as much a promotion of Gingrich as a discreet rebuke of Romney.

Cambridge, Massachusetts (CNN) — With Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s dramatic demise this Thursday morning, the world is rid of a tyrant, and a free Libya has jumped a mile forward to stability (though, as CNN’s Ben Wedeman reports, there are still many more miles to go).

Yet in America, we are speeding toward the 2012 presidential elections, and talk quickly turns to the political considerations here. President Obama appeared Thursday afternoon in the White House Rose Garden to celebrate this “momentous day in the history of Libya” and to declare that “one of the world’s longest dictators is no more.”

Las Vegas, Nevada (CNN) – The Iowa Republican Party on Monday made official what had been expected, announcing that its caucuses will be held on Tuesday, January 3. The state party’s central committee on Monday night officially signed off on the date.

The caucuses were originally going to be held in February. But once Florida moved up its primary to January 31, Iowa Republicans said they had no choice but to move up.

Programming note: GOP presidential candidates next face off at 8 p.m. ET Tuesday, October 18, in the CNN Western Republican Presidential Debate in Las Vegas, Nevada. Submit your questions for the debate here.